Encore: Parisian cafe music is back in Crail

Les Trois Blondes are Scotland’s only Bal Musette band playing classical Parisian cafe music. The show is compèred, telling the audience the story of Bal Musette, particularly during the war years with Edith Piaf, and the link between Scotland and the genre.

Award winning accordion brothers John and George Burns are joined on the drums by French speaker and compère Fergus Wood. John is the current Musette Champion of Scotland and former All-Scotland Accordion Champion. They present a very varied programme which includes foxtrots, tangos, mazurkas and polkas, in addition to waltzes.

Les Trois Blondes are the only band in Scotland specialising in Bal Musette, the French café music of Paris. There is a very strong tradition with Scottish accordionists of playing this style of music which is mostly in waltz tempo. Much of the music played by the band features numbers made famous by Maurice Chevalier and Edith Piaf, the little sparrow, and several items in their programme of over 80 compositions are by the two Burns brothers. Musette goes well with French wines and French cooking and recently the band played at a very romantic event on 14 February in Café Santé, one of Perth’s leading French restaurants. When not playing musette, the band’s mainline work is ceilidh music, which has taken them all round the world.


Trois Blondes is a double entendre in the context of the band – it means “Three Pints of Lager,” please!